~~ Pharmacy student from the University of Minnesota ~~ 5-week rotation in Germany ~~ Hoping to share a little bit about a German pharmacy called Adler Apotheke, a foreign health system, and life in Deutschland ~~

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Today we ventured via bus & train in the rain to Düsseldorf to visit their university & pharmacy school.

Making our way to the train station

Thanks to Ms. Biester for the umbrellas!

We took a pretty extensive tour of the pharmacy school, visiting the pharmacology & pharmacokinetics lab, library & cafeteria.

Checking out the pharmacy research lab

Eating lunch like German university students

After drying off from another trek through the pouring rain, we joined the '8th semester' German pharmacy students in their Clinical Pharmacy course. We chatted with some of the students before class started. Their pharmacy professor gave a brief introduction about Germany & German pharmacy school to us, then we proceeded to give our presentation regarding pharmacy in the United States, the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) as a degree, the University of Minnesota's admissions/curriculum/activities, and medication therapy management.

Spreading some U of M pharmacy knowledge during our presentation

The German pharmacy students asked questions about our tuition, loans & salaries (which are all higher! German students have free education, but lower salaries overall).

They also asked about our experience and confidence in working directly with patients; we explained that we often have "fake" patients during our first couple years of pharmacy school, but plenty of other instances (work, volunteering, community teachers) to interact with real patients.

The German students have lots of lab, and so were wondering why we only had 2 hours of lab per week; we reviewed our timeline of receiving a PharmD, and that a lot of lab is done during our prerequisite courses in undergrad. Germans enter pharmacy school directly after highschool graduation, so their classes and labs are more chemistry-dense during pharmacy school, which is very different from the U.S.

After a very succesful 40-minute presentation given by the 11 of us, some of the German students & staff hosted a BBQ at the school, and we all had a great time!